Is Mayor Cherelle Parker Mullins (D-Philadelphia) an [insert slang term for the rectum here]? The city’s left are aghast that Mrs Mullins has promised that the city government will not provide even a single dollar for the syringe exchange program to ‘reduce harm’ to the junkies who shoot up in Philly’s streets. And while I have yet to see an official editorial in The Philadelphia Inquirer opposing the Mayor’s announced policy, the newspaper’s coverage certainly seems slanted in that general direction. We have previously reported on how almost everyone supports drug addiction treatment and rehabilitation, but they prefer it to be in other people’s neighborhoods, and how even in Democrat-controlled Philadelphia, the City Council passed an ordinance which bans ‘safe injection centers in all council districts except one. We also noted that, despite residential opposition, the editors of The Philadelphia Inquirer have supported the concept of ‘safe injection centers and been opposed to efforts to ban drug treatment centers in specific neighborhoods.

Mayor Parker proposes cutting nearly $1 million in syringe exchange funding for Prevention Point

The shift is part of Parker’s promise to end the city’s financial support of programs that provide sterile syringes to people who use drugs.

by Anna Orso and Aubrey Whelan | Income Tax Day, April 15, 2024 | 12:02 PM EDT | Updated: 4:11 PM EDT

Mayor Cherelle Parker Mullins, from her Facebook page.

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration wants the city to cut nearly $1 million of funding to Prevention Point, a large social services organization in Kensington, as part of her promise to end the city’s financial support of programs that provide sterile syringes to people who use drugs.

Yet health experts in her own administration acknowledged that research shows syringe exchanges effectively prevent the spread of HIV and other bloodborne illnesses — and that they’re preparing for a spike in disease.

“There will be decreased syringe distribution and an increase in HIV cases as a result,” Kathleen A. Brady, the city’s director of HIV Health, said during a City Council hearing about the department’s budget Monday. Interim Health Commissioner Frank Franklin added: “We are clear and anticipate there may be some spikes, so we have plans for that.”

The news comes as Parker’s administration has placed an intense focus on ending the open-air drug market in Kensington, where sprawling homelessness, addiction, and violence driven by the drug trade have been commonplace for years. The mayor has proposed a five-phase process to address the conditions in the neighborhood, including arresting people for drug possession and prostitution.

This is the fifth time I have used the article title, “Sometimes you just have to be an [insert slang term for the rectum here] to do things right”, and the Mayor is at least trying to do things right. You can’t fight drug abuse by coddling drug addicts, and drug addicts, and the dealers who supply them, have turned the Kensington section into such a disaster zone so bad that the Mexican government uses it as an example to its own people of why they should not use drugs. We do not know if the new Mayor will actually be able to rescue Kensington from what it has become, but we do know that halfway measures will not fix the area.

So, is Mayor Mullins an [insert slang term for the rectum here]? Perhaps so, but sometimes an [insert slang term for the rectum here] is just what you need to get the job done. I’d bet $20 that the Mayor would happily accept that term, if she actually got the job done. And we do know that (supposedly) nice guy Mayor, Jim Kenney, did not get the job done.

We’ve seen decades of kinder, gentler government which has turned Kensington into the fetid and festering sewer it is today, and complaints that the Mayor’s new policies will lead to more HIV and other infections, but I have asked the [insert slang term for the rectum here] question, why do we even want to keep junkies alive? Junkies have to steal from innocent people to support their habits, they cannot keep jobs to support themselves, they are laying down in the streets of Kensington, and in the SEPTA train stations, and are nothing but a burden on society.

Prevention Point last year received nearly $7.2 million in city funding for services that include operating a homeless shelter and providing health-care services to people in addiction. The city’s Health Department paid about $900,000 of that for “risk reduction services,” including Prevention Point’s syringe exchange program, the oldest and largest in Philadelphia.

Budget documents show that Parker is proposing the city cut that $900,000.

Prevention Point declined to comment Monday. Public health researchers and physicians sharply criticized the move, pointing to research that shows syringe services reduce the transmission of infections and bloodborne diseases like HIV and hepatitis.

So, has Prevention Point actually helped? They’ve certainly enabled the junkies to keep on shooting up drugs, but is that a good thing? The Inky would never report this, but The Free Press reported “Addiction Activists Say They’re ‘Reducing Harm’ in Philly. Locals Say They’re Causing It.”

What are the nice guy policies doing? It’s like owning a convertible sports car, and leaving it unlocked, because you’d rather that anyone who wants to break into it can simply open the door rather than cut the rag top. You still can’t keep nice things in the car, and, compared to Kensington, the criminals can more easily steal the car and then wrap it around one of the support beams for the El.

And that’s what has happened in Kensington: the junkies have stolen the car, and trashed it. You might get the vehicle back, but will you really want to keep it?